Senior Manager Innovation

Have you ever enjoyed Arnold®, Brownberry® or Oroweat® bread? A Thomas’® English muffin or bagel? Or perhaps snacked on a Sara Lee®, Entenmann’s® or Marinela® cake or donut? If the answer is yes, then you know Bimbo Bakeries USA!

More than 20,000 associates in bakeries, sales centers, offices and on sales routes work to ensure our consumers have the freshest products at every meal. In addition to competitive pay and benefits, we provide a safe and inclusive work environment that appreciates diversity, promotes development and allows our associates to be their authentic selves.

• Salary Range: $102,00- $142,800
• Annual Bonus Eligibility
• Comprehensive Benefits Package
• Paid Time Off
• 401k & Company Match

Innovation plays a key role in remaining competitive in the market and to position ourselves for further growth. To focus our efforts, our Innovation team will work closely with our Brand Teams, R&D, Technical Services, Manufacturing, Engineering, and Sales teams to support the goals and strategies of our branded businesses. The Senior Manager of Innovation position will support our Bread and Breakfast Innovation team and will play a key role in filling our future innovation pipeline.

The person in this position will be responsible for understanding our category business objectives, working through consumer insights to ideate new products and then shepherd those new ideas through a product development process all the way through to launch. This team member will lead their projects with cross functional teams through testing and development. This individual will need to demonstrate consumer empathy, as well as excellent teamwork, communication skills, organization, and project management skills.

Exposure to a variety of market research techniques and experience in data analysis are also important. We are looking for candidates who are passionate about food and food trends and who enjoy the work of creating new things.

• Mine trend and consumer data to map where the consumer is going and generate compelling product ideas that meet their needs.
• Systematically evaluate ideas to select high potential opportunities for further testing and/or feasibility analysis.
• Collaborate with internal research partner to design innovation testing (qualitative, concept, prototype, in-store etc.) to best prove out innovation viability with consumers.
• Develop strong, collaborative relationships with cross-functional teams (Brand Teams, Manufacturing, Sales, R&D) to ensure collaboration and alignment of direction at all stages of development and launch.
• Use information, logic, and sound business judgment to develop new products and categories.
• Use strong project management skills to navigate projects through to execution
• Prepare persuasive sales and internal communication materials.
• Work collaboratively with agency and research partners.
• Must be agile in creating and reading data analysis to generate business insights.
• Develop and manage new products and program handoffs (process and materials) to ensure a smooth transition of new product launch activities throughout the development process.

• Be a team player and strong collaborator.
• Ability to sell ideas up, down and sideways to keep team and stakeholders motivated and focused.
• Self-starter, ability to work independently.
• Innovative problem solver.
• Open mindset.
• Tenacious.
• Results oriented.
• Learning enthusiast, intellectual curiosity.
• Excellent organizational and communication (written and oral) skills.

• Adapts approach and attitude in real time, according to the changing demands of different situations.
• Creates a climate where people are motivated to do their best to help the organization achieve its objectives.
• Holds self and others accountable to meet commitments.
• Makes sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Innovation or a related field. MBA preferred. 5-10+ years of experience, CPG preferred.
• Computer skills and proficiency with MS Word, Excel,…